


Farther than Pleiades

by Seraphin



Category: The Honourable Woman
Genre: F/F, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:53:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2337596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seraphin/pseuds/Seraphin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one thing she is sure of, after all, is the way the Palestinian is looking at her right now. Atika, her anchor. It’s a mystery, really - Atika is a child of the desert, all flat land, burning sun and scorched earth. She really shouldn’t be this soothing to Nessa. But she is.<br/>And missing her comes in waves. Right now, Nessa is drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farther than Pleiades

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely connected thoughts and memories about Nessa’s life between her kidnapping and Kasim’s and an encounter they have somehow failed to mention in the show. Takes place sometime in the first half of the season.  
> Vaguely AU-ish, since it’s meant to fill the gaping hole in my heart rather than to be in accordance with the show.

أبعد من الثريا

 

Most things come easy to Nessa. It’s always been like that. Give her an essay on post-war industrial agriculture in Britain and before you can say ‘Kibbutz’ she’ll apply it to Israeli monocultures. Or introduce her to a new sport; she’ll beat you a few days later, with one of her bright laughs that makes her eyes seem greener than they really are. Nessa’s mind likes to believe in binary codes: If it’s not work it’s a game, and she’s used to winning.

That’s not to say there aren’t certain activities, jobs, _things_ Nessa can’t do, or only very poorly. She doesn’t like them, of course, and avoids them to the best of her abilities. They cause the voice in the back of her head to whisper constantly. Everyone who aspires “something higher” will have to face the fear of falling, eventually. Loving is one of those things, crying another. They’ve always been hard, even before her father’s assassination by the PLO. Afterwards they were impossible.

Which is why she practices the first whenever she can and never does the latter if she can help it.

Nessa never cries. Or, that is, she never cried until – until Kasim.

Not that she doesn’t have moments when she feels like it. When the weight of the world seems far too heavy for her small shoulders, her delicate frame. When the little beating thing caged between her ribs, what someone with a lot of imagination might call a heart, throbs so harshly the world disintegrates around her, because there’s white noise in her ears that drowns everything else. These seconds – hours, really, the clocks are lying whenever she glances at them afterwards – bring only numbness, and pain, and a sensation of something breaking in her. She’s been stuffing herself with a never ending stream of meaningless things that don’t even begin to fill the emptiness inside her, the hole ripped open by that faithful journey so many years ago.

There is an ugly crack running down the middle of her life. It’s right there, painstakingly obvious, sticking out of the meticulously painted façade of her life like a rusty nail. And sometimes she thinks that any second now the world will realize and turn in disgust away from her and what she’s pretended to be so far. It’s not that she’s ashamed of it herself; it’s just that the crack separates everything from what she wants to be and do from who she really turned into. Bad things creep out of it. Things that infect her mind and turn everything stale and bitter if she doesn’t keep them under control. Nessa likes to think it’s the kidnapping eight years ago that caused it.

In reality it’s her meeting Atika for the first time.

Since she’d been old enough to remember, she always defined her life in before and after. Until eight years ago it was before her father’s murder – and after. Now it’s before Atika and after the Palestinian came into Nessa’s life.

Now it’s Kasim. And since Kasim’s kidnapping, the monster that fathered him.

But the fault has been there before, a breaking point predetermined like some genetic disease she’s inherited alongside the company and the rest of her father’s mistakes. It had been so faint at first, just one tiny white lie more – it wasn’t even a lie, in the beginning. In those very first days it was just her pretending to be someone she’s not. The naivety was real, as well as her wish to make sure that the company wasn’t compromised – that her brother Ephra hadn’t compromised it – but she’d pretended that there was nothing that pulled her towards Atika. And somehow everything has multiplied, snowballed, and spiralled out of control. The following avalanche turned her world upside down. Politics and the Stein Group came out top.

Atika in the new centre.

Trauma is permanent. The change it comes with never goes away again. Nessa knows that, and yet she has managed to keep her kindness. Atika is the one who kicks and screams. They mirror each other, balance each other. Superficially they’re utterly different but they’re two sides of the same coin, really. Atika keeps her grounded and Nessa knows that the protective shield, which she can provide with her name and company and legacy, keeps Atika’s personal demons at bay.

Ephra likes to think that he is the defining constant in her life, that he gives her strength, that he is the reason she visits his house so often.

He is wrong.

But now everything is too complicated to go back. Righting wrongs is out of the question. She’s become accustomed to it like she gets used to the climate in Tel Aviv after bleak rain in London. And it works, it really does. Most days – 99 out of 100 – she’s strong enough too believe that there’s nothing askew. That there’s nothing she could have done differently, that she’s one the right path.

But then the hundredth day hits and she’s right back in the desert she spent eight years aimlessly wandering around, desperately trying to leave.

Once, it may have been on Kasim’s first birthday party, she held a wineglass so firmly in her hand she didn’t even hear it crack and splinter. Not until Atika’s cool fingers were wrapped around her wrist. The Palestinian peeled glass shards from between Nessa’s fingers and her palm, pressing white cotton against the wounds to still the red liquid that was already spilling on her dress. Then she took Nessa in her arms and Nessa, the pain in her hands slowly seeping through the nausea, felt the world ever so slowly coming together again.

There was the first time Nessa heard how Kasim called Atika “mommy”. With so much fervour in his little voice. Not rushing out of the room right away was much, much harder than expected for Nessa. But Atika had sensed it somehow, with her intrinsic radar for the emotional stability of all members of the Stein family, and stood up, little Kasim in her arms. She strolled to Nessa’s side. The boy stretched out his hands to play with Nessa’s jewlery, and the smile she and Atika exchanged had been blinding.

Becoming an Anglo-Israeli business woman, establishing a reputation as a philanthropist, juggling her career and politics eats up the most of Nessa’s time. The rest is reserved for representing her family privately. There is not much left besides the dark of the night to struggle with her father’s real legacy. The crimes associated with her father’s name will not be forgotten in her life time. Nessa knows that. She’s accepted it and she can handle it all. But in the end she does need breaks, from time to time. In these situations it’s been Atika who has been at her side, ready to catch her if she stumbled. She never did.

And then, sometime around Kasim’s fifth birthday, there was that one moment when she realized for the first time how deeply, irrevocably, fundamentally messed up the situation is. How irreversible. Even if she tried to pull herself out of it, even if she found the willpower to attempt an escape to Rome, or Santiago, or Lagos, there was no way she wouldn’t be drawn back to London and the Stein Group, eventually. The company has evolved a mind of its own. It needs her, and she needs it. And then there’s the family itself, that has always been like quicksand anyway. Every movement only pulls you in deeper. Run away and their embrace will suffocate you.

(She would have never admitted it – Atika is a better mother than Nessa could ever be, she’s Kasim’s best shot at a good life – but her son would have been a reason to return to, too. Like the prodigal daughter she’s always been.)

Nessa can remember the second when it dawned on her as clearly as that one morning, the feeling of soft white sheets under her body and the sunlight filtering through the windows, tickling her skin. It wasn’t even a light bulb going off. On the contrary, it was more of a gradual awakening, just like her body and soul rising slowly from the dreams she’d had. But when the bad days come around again, Nessa ends up remembering that day.

Atika had spent the night at her place, randomly, when a particularly bad wave of darkness had rolled over her. Nessa had crawled into the other woman’s bed and the Palestinian had wrapped herself around Nessa, softly humming nursery rhymes from her own childhood, stroking her back and arms and head until Nessa had drifted away again. They had slept pressed close to each other, their limbs entangled in a way that resembled how Atika had supported her during the long nights of Nessa’s pregnancy. She’d woken up with their noses almost touching and a strand of Atika’s dark hair in her mouth.

In the following weeks, months, years, Nessa tried to forget that night. She really did. She tried to supress the memory at all costs – work, traveling, the usual one-night-stands once in a while, more work. But no project was fulfilling enough to captivate her mind in the same way. No matter the distance she put between them, her muscles could remember like phantom pain how perfectly her and Atika’s shapes had fit into one another. No lover’s touch could reach the same level of making her feel as whole – holy? – as a simple platonic gesture from the Palestinian.

It’s pathetic, and Nessa knows it. Worse, it’s physically and emotionally draining in a way she can’t even begin to understand. No matter how hard she tries to forget the whole thing.

Every time she comes back, every time Atika wanders back into Nessa’s house, her workplace, thoughts, personal space, the memories bubble back up. Not of the year they were kept in Gaza, but of the myriad of little kindnesses, looks, words they exchanged afterwards. It makes it impossible to kill the feeling that Atika elicits in her. She’s smoke, Nessa couldn’t keep her out if she sealed every window, locked every door, and threw away the key. Atika’s scent sticks to Nessa’s clothes, her fingers, her room.

The worst is, it sticks to Ephra. It’s only natural, Nessa thinks sometimes, Atika works in his house after all.

It’s after a meeting with him that Nessa sits in her office in London, puts her head back on the expensive white leather chair, closes her eyes and allows the waves to crash over her. They submerge her easily. Just for a second. Just to think. It can’t hurt, can it? (Yes, oh _yes_ it can.)

She thinks of light white summer wine, black hair and the songbirds in the rustling leaves beyond the garden. She thinks of musakhan, taboon bread, stuffed date maamoul, the hints of cinnamon and cardamom that taste more like home than the sweet hamantashen of Ephra’s wife Rachel ever could. Nessa frowns at the thought. She puts a hand over her eyes, takes a deep breath. It doesn’t help.

She needs Atika so bad it’s turning her insides into charcoal.

Everything else is just peripheral.

It’s been weeks since they’ve had a proper conversation. Months since they’ve been really alone together. Nessa sits up. She lets her gaze sweep around her pristine office. Everything is white, immaculate and light. It matches her silk blouse. One window is opened, a soft gust of wind makes the curtains billow. No sound filters through.

It’s Friday afternoon, the end of a long week and a longer month.

There is no indication that the next one, or the next three, or the next six will be any different.

In the blink of an eye, the decision is made. The next second she’s already slipping into her Mulberry coat and rushes out of the door. Her PA looks up from her computer screen, confusion plastered across her features. Usually Nessa is the last one to leave, even on Fridays. Especially on Fridays.

“Everything alright, Miss Stein?”

“Family calls,” Nessa says. She underlines her apologetic tone with a smile that asks for forgiveness and gives the impression of just having let you in on a deep secret no one else knows about – the smile she has mastered. The one that doesn’t reach her eyes.

Her PA bends her head. She nods, full of understanding.

Nessa doesn’t see it, she’s already out of the door, calling “take the rest of the afternoon off, Frances, you’ve earned it. See you next week!”

Her heels click one the stairs, the stone floor in the entrance hall and on the pavement outside the back door. And then she’s behind the wheel of her car she’s parked here secretly.

The drive is long but uneventful. Her phone doesn’t ring, the people paid to protect her now haven’t noticed her disappearance yet. She’ll pacify them, in case they call. Nessa tries not to think too much. Not to think at all, in fact. It’d only complicate everything. She drives faster than ultimately necessary. It’s more of a pull on her and she’s following it almost passively. She knows the way by heart, although she has steered the car down these streets only a handful of times. But right now she wouldn’t be able to drive anywhere else. Watching the grey and steel buildings of central London transforming into the smaller houses and the occasional cottages of the outskirts, more and more dots of green splattered among them, she feels herself taking deep breaths, giving in.

When she finally pulls up, she’d have trouble recalling exactly how she got here. But that’s not what her head is busy with right now anyway. As soon as she’s out on her way and she can see it, her eyes are focused on the house and its door. Her feet begin to carry her faster towards it. Then the door opens.

 _Atika._ Whether it is a whisper that leaves her mouth alongside her next exhalation, sneaking out like a silent prayer, or just one more time that one thought rings in her head like it has been echoing in the last few hours – days? weeks? – Nessa isn’t so sure. Her chest his heaving up and down; she’s been jogging up the path from where she’s parked the car. Her life’s been, quite literally, blasted apart – a couple of times now, she should keep better track, but it’s nice to see that some things don’t change. That her parent’s house is still there. That Rachel is bringing up her children in this place. Everything beyond that blurs into a never ending nightmare, coming with the inexplicable dread that lurks in the darkness alongside the monsters. The carefully maintained façade she’s been working on for years is peeled away with every single decision Nessa makes, in public and in private. Her life runs through her fingers like sand in an hourglass. There is nothing to hold on to, no matter where she turns.

The one thing she is, after all, sure of is the way the Palestinian looks at her right now. Atika, her anchor. It’s a mystery, really - Atika is a child of the desert, all flat land, burning sun and scorched earth. She really shouldn’t be this soothing to Nessa. But she is.

And missing her comes in waves. Right now, Nessa is drowning.

She is hasting up the way to the Ephra’s, and Rachel’s, house. The gravel scrunches under her heels.  Birds are singing in the green that lines her path. The leaves are swaying and rustling in the growing wind. Blue sky spans everything above it. The soft breeze makes the nerve ends under her skin in the nape of her neck tingle. It smells like rain.

Nessa doesn’t notice any of it. Her eyes are fixed on the woman waiting for her on the porch, she must have heard the car when Nessa arrived. Atika has her arms folded in front of her chest. There’s a hard line around her mouth. She stands tall and erect, sticks out her chin a bit. Her eyes are soft, though. And they’re fixed on Nessa. Taking her in.

When Nessa comes to a halt in front of her, she’s panting. She can see Atika’s eyes flicker for the briefest of moments down to her collarbone, the hollow underneath her throat and clavicle. It’s steadily moving up and down and up again. Nessa is sucking in oxygen, greedily, feeling it rush into her lungs.

She runs a hand through her short hair, ruffles it a bit. Then she offers Atika a lopsided smile. When she opens her mouth her voice is cool and collected and deep, as usual, doesn’t betray any of the restlessness inside her. “Rachel told me, she and Ephra are in London. They won’t even notice I’m here. You don’t mind if I spend a day or two out here, do you?”

Atika doesn’t move. Nothing flitters over her expression, nothing gives away her thoughts. She must wonder why Nessa doesn’t ask why she’s still out here. Why the housekeeper doesn’t follow the family back home. But Nessa knows, always does. He’s her brother, she simply knows him too well. He won’t want to spend too much time around Atika, now that Rachel is suspicious. He is an ass, but not a stupid one. There is a lump in Nessa’s throat whenever she thinks about what he must mean to Atika – and she to him. It’s not a situation she wants to insert herself into, and she doubts that Atika wanted her to. But the thought that something could happen – Rachel’s surging jealousy, Ephra breaking under the pressure and kicking Atika out – is crippling. Nessa needs Atika in her life. One way or another.

The Palestinian is her firefighter, secret white whale, sometimes even her own personal builder – the only one who can fix whatever Nessa can’t. And Nessa likes to believe that her own presence calms Atika. That her smile grows wider, her eyes brighter. She might be imagining it, but as long as Atika doesn’t send her back home she’s ready to take her chances.

They stare at each other for a long moment.

Atika tilts her head to the side. Her dark eyes never leave Nessa’s face until she turns around to walk back into the house. Her voice is soft when she says, in her deeply familiar accent, “Come on in then.”

Nessa bends her head, gratefully. Simply hearing her voice again is enough to clear her head. A little.

It’s cool inside. And since it’s close to dinner time, a smell of spices like coriander, cumin, black peppercorn, paprika and cinnamon bark lingers in the hallway.

Atika rarely cooks traditional food when she’s making meals for the Stein family. Especially Rachel doesn’t really like Middle Eastern cuisine, no matter how much she pretends to cherish it. It’s simply because for Rachel it carries different connotations. It’s always meant holidays, a lot of work for the women of the family, smoking and joking men all around the house. Just a lot of stress. On normal days she cooks simpler things that she learnt during her time at uni, not from her mum. For Atika it’s different. For Atika it means home.

Nessa puts her coat on a hanger in the attic, leaves her bag and shoes by the couch and strolls into the kitchen. She finds the Palestinian standing at the large oak table, bent over a small bowl filled with a mixture of different spices and grinding them skilfully. Large jars full of differently coloured powders, leaves, and many other ingredients surround her. It looks like she’s filling the emptiness of Kasim’s absence in the same way Nessa does – work.

Atika looks up. “I’m refilling my supply. I’m nearly out of many things.”

Nessa remains standing in the door. She crosses her arms in front of her, leans her head against the doorpost, and watches. Then she smiles softly. Her dark voice carries honesty when it overcomes the scraping noises of Atika’s work. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Of course,” Atika answers. “Do you want something to drink? Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

Finally, Atika seems satisfied with her work and pushes the bowl aside after putting its contents into another jar. She wipes her hands on her jeans. Then, one fist on her hip she almost sits on the table and runs the back of her hand across her forehead as if to wipe away invisible sweat. Her hair is tied back but a single strand has fallen into her face. She strokes it behind her ear. They look at each other in silence. Nessa will not break it. So Atika does.

“Nessa, are you okay?”

“Yes. I am. Considering the circumstances – I’m okay.”

Again, the stare at each other. For once, Nessa doesn’t feel like she’s being scrutinized. She’s not being judged. Just being seen for who she is. Without secrets.

Thunder rumbles in the distance outside the open windows. Nessa was right – it’s going to rain.

“Do you want wine?”

“God, yes,” Nessa exclaims thankfully, and springs into action. Her apathy falls away. She fully enters the kitchen and takes two glasses out of the cupboard while Atika opens the fridge. She doesn’t even ask whether Nessa wants the red one. Both women prefer white. So she produces a bottle of vouvray, a French gem. Probably from the Loire valley, Nessa thinks and nods approvingly when Atika shows it to her.

The Palestinian’s eyes light up as she smirks and pours the golden liquid into their wine glasses. “For a British person you drink remarkably little tea.”

Nessa laughs. “You’re right. Maybe I should get a French pass too.”

The soft clink fills the kitchen when their glasses touch before they raise them to their lips. Atika holds her gaze the whole time. The vouvray coats Nessa’s tongue, sweet and fruity, with a touch of almond. A hint of honeysuckle reaches her nose. She enjoys it, lets the taste fill her head, and takes another sip. “Isn’t that Rachel’s?”

“Her favourite. She won’t notice it’s gone, there’s a whole case in the cellar.”

Nessa smiles. The thought of emptying the bottle today suits her just fine.

“So, why are you really here?” Atika asks, swirling her drink in her hand.

Immediately, Nessa comes back to reality. Her eyes narrow, trying to find the meaning behind those words in Atika’s face. But the Palestinian’s features are soft, just like her tone and the emotions in her eyes. And just like that, Nessa crumbles. “I just wanted to get out of London. Away from the city and what’s happened in the last few weeks. Spend a day or two out here.”

“Why didn’t you wait for Ephra? Or ask him about it?”

Nessa shakes her head. “He doesn’t have to know. He’d just worry. You know him.”

That might have been the wrong thing to say. Considering how little Atika lets other people see of her inner emotional life, she recoils immediately. Her gaze drops away, she sucks her bottom lip between her teeth and turns away from Nessa to look out of the window.

The first splashes of rain hit against the glass and fall on the windowsill. Both women place their wine on the table and rush to close the windows, to keep the water out. The sound of the onset of rain interrupts their previous conversation. Nessa feels a drop landing on her wrist. Suddenly, she laughs. “Do you want to go outside?”

“What?”

“Come on, Atika, we haven’t done this in years!”

“It’s raining!”

The protest falls on deaf ears. Nessa grabs her by the elbow and pulls Atika through the living room and out of the back door, into the garden. The rain is falling heavily now, thunder rolls much closer than before, but the birds still haven’t stopped singing. The swing set creaks when a gust of wind hits it. The noise of water falling on the green grass and the trees rises in volume. When she steps from the stone floor onto the grass, it tickles Nessa’s naked feet. She laughs loudly and raises her hands, reaching for the sky and the clouds. Water falls on her head, her shoulders, her blouse. Which is white, unlike Atika’s blue cotton one, and definitely not made for these purposes. But she couldn’t care less.

A second later her mood has infected Atika and she starts to laugh too. First it’s a smirk that breaks into a husky giggle and finally she’s really laughing, hasting behind Nessa who’s half walking, half jumping down the garden, the pure joy of simply _feeling_ again filling every cell of her body. God, she’s missed this.

“You’ll catch a cold!” Atika shouts behind her, trying to get herself under control again.

“I don’t care!” Nessa yells back. She turns around towards Atika, leans forward and shakes her head like a dog, as fast as she can. Atika screeches with laughter when the fountain of cold rain water from Nessa’s hair hits her. She jumps away and tries to run, but Nessa is faster. A few running steps later Nessa throws her arms around Atika from behind, who is by now helplessly shaking with laughter. It’s a strange feeling of freedom that grabs hold of them both. It’s really downpouring now, soaking them both to the bones. But it’s still summer and the water almost warm. They’re not freezing, on the contrary, Atika’s skin feels hot to Nessa’s touch. There’s rain running down the bridge of her nose and it looks positively luminous.

Lightning tears the sky in two, the zig zag line bright against the black backdrop of the thunderclouds. Both women screech, and run, still laughing, back to the house. Nessa presses her hand against the small of Atika’s back.

Back inside Atika finds towels for them both. They rub their hair dry, still giggling, ridiculously like little girls. Atika can’t understand the sudden outburst of childishness on Nessa’s part, and every time Nessa’s eyes fall on Atika’s smirk, her wet hair and clothes, she can’t help but burst with laughter again. Slowly, drying themselves calms both of them down again. Without thinking much about it, Atika sighs loudly and says “Ya’aburnee, Nessa.”

For a second Nessa thinks she’s misheard it, before a feeling of endless warmth spreads in her chest that doesn’t stop until it’s reverberating in her fingertips.

The first time Atika murmured كنت تدفنني it was into Nessa’s shoulder, while she was hugging the head of the Stein Group from behind. It was a chuckle escaping from her throat and Nessa could feel the tremble in Atika’s chest, the laughter about to erupt, spreading and spilling over into her own spine through the thin fabric of their dresses. It was midsummer, they were in the London flat, in the small garden, Ephra chasing the kids around and Nessa had said, stoically hidden behind her sunglasses and a bowl of berries, that she for one couldn’t understand why Rachel would want any more children if she had Nessa’s brother.

Ephra had chosen that moment to fall melodramatically to the ground, and the next second Kasim and Hannah were over the blond man, squealing and screaming with delight while fighting the tickle-monster.

“Don’t you want to join them?” Atika had asked, the mischievous smirk on her lips more audible than visible, and from behind she had sneaked an arm around Nessa’s waist.

“No, I’m perfectly fine here,” Nessa had replied after licking her finger – red from strawberries and probably a few drops of spilled wine. “I wouldn’t want another juice disaster. Do you remember Rachel’s face after you brought Hannah back covered in red from head to toe? Her favourite dress ruined?”

“Yes. After the school fair.” And not without a hint of pride she had added “Kasim didn’t have a single spot on his clothes.”

“He takes after you.”

And then Atika had laughed into the nape of her neck. Nessa had felt how she had inhaled the scent of Nessa’s skin, smelling of English summer, and nothing in the world could have destroyed that one moment of bliss.

There haven’t been that many of them, but if they do come Nessa clings to them for years.

Now, hearing the same words dropping seemingly thoughtless from Atika’s lips, Nessa can feel the same bliss again, blooming in the centre of her chest. She rubs her short hair a bit harder, trying to avoid showing how much exactly the little phrase means to her. Outside, thunder continues to rumble above the house. The negatively charged ions in the air around them seem to seep into the space between Nessa’s own atoms, charging her with electricity that flares every time she gets close to Atika.

“Are you hungry?” Atika asks finally, and Nessa nods. They find leftovers of the last family meal in the fridge – rice, chicken, and boiled vegetables, none of which they can identify with hundred percent certainty. Out of the spur of the moment, they decide to eat outside, as far as it’s possible. Wrapped in blankets, sitting next to each other on the bench on the porch underneath the canopy of the roof that’s barely protecting them from the elements, they dig into their dinner like they haven’t eaten in days. It’s horrible food, really, but Atika mixed some of her fresh spices into it and Nessa could swear she hasn’t eaten that good in weeks. From time to time, they take large gulps from their wine. It feels incredible, being huddled but this close to each other and the storm and still so safe from it.

“Back when I was a child,” Nessa begins, still chewing, “I used to watch storms whenever I could. I loved it. The thunder, the lightning, the rain.”

“Where I come from, rain was rare enough and when it came it only meant mud and feeling cold,” Atika replies without looking up, “but as children we loved it too.”

Nessa remains completely silent. She hopes for Atika to continue. It’s incredibly rare that the Palestinian talks about her childhood. When she doesn’t, though, Nessa prompts her quietly with “You mean the camp?”

Atika puts her fork down on her plate, watches how the rain pours down into the garden of the Stein’s family house and raises her wineglass to her lips. Nessa gives her all the time she needs.

“There are more than six million refugees, one of the biggest displaced people on earth. Some are not recognized by the UN, but nonetheless refugees even if their right of existence is denied. We have to live somewhere, don’t we? If we don’t want to be absorbed by the neighbouring countries, we live in camps. It’s where Palestinians are born, go to school if there are good teachers, work if there are legal jobs, it’s where many Palestinians die.” She sneaks a quick glance at Nessa. Her eyes are dark, but there’s a smile forming in them and on her lips when she adds “And it also happens to be where our children play in the rain.”

Nessa listens quietly. She knows the history - the Arab Exodus around 1948. The war. Failed negotiations. Decades of injustice, violence, pain. It’s her history too. She’s listened to many accounts of it, from both sides. But she’s never heard Atika explain her position.

“What did you like to do as a child?” She asks.

“Kites. Making kites and flying them,” Atika answers simply.

Nessa would love to hear more, but she knows Atika. That’s enough about her own story for today.

So Nessa says, “You truly are a wandering Arab.”

“Of course. I’ve never learnt to be anything else.” With a soft smile, Atika places her by now empty plate aside, pulls up her knees to rest her chin on top of them and continues to watch the storm in their garden. Nessa wishes she’d find the right words to disagree, but she can’t.

After a brief while she finishes her meal as well and refills their glasses generously. The wine tastes as sweet as ever, and she’s not sure how much they’ve had already. By now the weather has calmed down a bit. The strong gusts of wind faded away, leaving the swings in the garden almost motionless. The downpour has given way to a softer drizzle. All the sounds of rain and late summer nights around them wave together to spin a symphony like their own personal orchestra.

Nessa takes a sip of the golden wine, placing an elbow on the backrest of their bench, behind Atika’s shoulder. Then she puts her head in her hand and simply watches the Palestinian, thinking about her place among the millions of refugees all around Israel’s borders.

Some things just are, as opposed to how they ought to be. There is a distinction between _is_ and _ought._ The difference borders on the question of morality and a discussion Nessa is very well prepared not to have.

The line blurs anyway. Atika ought to be a translator, but she’s Ephra’s housekeeper. Ephra looks at Atika in a way Nessa doesn’t like, when he ought to care for his ever growing family. The latter is the nucleus of their little world that somehow spans England and the Middle East and still feels so small that large doses of it are suffocating to Nessa. And she’s quite sure to Atika as well.

Nessa probably ought to be married to some rich London banker with a sense for family, to tie closer connections to the industry Nessa’s company needs for funding, but Nessa is irrevocably in love with the Palestinian.

Atika turns her head, just a few degrees, but it’s enough to catch Nessa’s eyes. They’re piercingly green, grey and blue-ish, polar opposite to Atika’s dark brown ones.

“I’m so glad you are here,” Nessa whispers huskily, leaning in a bit so the Palestinian can hear her.

Atika is the sky, and Nessa knows she shouldn’t do it but her self-control slips through her fingertips and for a moment or two she just stares at the Palestinian; religiously, incessantly, raw. It’s there, all of it, if she wanted to she could touch Atika right know, bury her hands in her long dark hair. It’s so thick and strong, unlike Nessa’s, but glints and shines so brightly and Nessa wants nothing more than feel it.

She’s not stupid, though. She knows that Atika doesn’t share that sentiment. If she’s honest, Nessa isn’t even sure she could (yes _of course_ she knows it better than her own heartbeat but she’s never heard Atika say it so it’s more of a feeling than an actually articulated idea, far outside her reasoning.) And then there’s Ephra. She didn’t want to do it, they all know that, but Atika has this whole family enthralled. She’s the centre of the chequerboard they’re all pieces of, being played with by god knows who.

Nessa bends forward even more, breaks their eye contact to press her lips to Atika’s shoulder. She finds a patch of bare skin where the blouse has slipped aside. The Palestinian’s hand comes up, grasps her upper arm and squeezes gently. The truth is, Nessa is more restless than swifts in autumn, and Atika knows it. She can handle it, perhaps she’s the only one who can since it’s only matched by the Palestinian’s rootlessness. She can brace the winds. The storm that roars in Nessa whenever she hears her family name, that drives her to do the things she does, and that has the strength to annihilate her from the inside out when she’d allow it, all that is perfectly clear to Atika. A simple touch from her and Nessa’s unruly inside goes quiet.

“Are you really alright?” Atika repeats her question from earlier.

A shiver runs down Nessa’s body. She sucks in a sharp breath. A heartbeat later, the tears are there, hot and burning, Nessa can barely fight them back. Her voice breaks. “No, Atika, I’m really not.”

“Baroness Nessa Stein,” Atika exhales. It almost sounds like resignation. Her fingers begin to stroke the other woman’s shoulder and she puts her other arm around her. Despite her small figure she’s strong and unyielding.

“Don’t say that,” Nessa murmurs despite her clenched teeth. She reacts to the embrace, wrapping her own hands around Atika, her nails digging into the fabric of her blouse. If she only could be closer.

Nessa knew it was her the second she met her. Atika is a magnet, or worse, Nessa is the needle and Atika the pole.

“This is too much. Kasim – this is all too much.”

“Stop, Nessa.”

“No, I can’t do this anymore.”

“Nessa. Please.”

“I can’t –“

“Look at me,” Atika hisses. “Nessa.”

Nessa takes a deep breath. She releases the Palestinian, lifts her head from her neck, blinking the tears away. She pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingertips, lets her hand fall back into her lap. Her green eyes find Atika’s face again.

“Don’t say this,” Atika insists. There is something fierce in her eyes. They’re relentless, piercing, and so full of emotions, almost as if she was fighting with herself as well. Nessa hates that thought – Atika should be free of demons within herself. She has suffered enough at the hand of others. It’s irrational, and Nessa knows it, but she wishes desperately she could be what Atika means to her so she’d take her worries away. Or at least soften the blows. Her gaze flickers to the curve of Atika’s lips, the expanse of her cheekbones, her hair, and return to her eyes.

The Palestinian probably guesses what Nessa is thinking about. Her gaze softens, just like her features. She lifts one hand to run her fingers through Nessa’s unruly short hair. The businesswoman leans into the touch. Her movement is mirrored.

Atika leans forward. Realizing how close they’ve come, Nessa freezes completely. Even her heart stops for a second or two, until it regains its beating with double speed and force.

Nessa doesn’t notice it. There is nothing else in her reality right now, nothing apart from Atika’s eyes, her mouth, the scent of her hair. They hold each other’s gaze, Atika almost waiting – pleading – for a nod, a sign, anything. Her head dips forward. This cannot be happening, this _absolutely cannot be happening -_ and then Atika’s lips brush against hers and Nessa’s brain shuts down.

Atika is soft. Softer than Nessa imagined. Her lips are a bit dry, taste salty – she is rain in the Negev.

And Atika kisses like she has been kissed by too many men before. Blunt and open mouthed and not expecting any of the softness Nessa can give her. There is no impatience in Nessa, as much as she’s longed for this moment. There is no harshness, only wonder. So, when Nessa’s lips part gently, Atika stops briefly, and then melts into her.

A moment later Nessa draws back. It’s for just the fraction of an inch, just to catch her breath again that’s been driven out of her lungs. She opens her eyes, only to be swept away the fragile vulnerability in the way Atika looks at her. It’s something she’s never seen in the other woman, and considering what they’ve been through, that is saying something. Nessa leans in again and presses their foreheads together. Somehow the Palestinian lifts a hand and runs her thumb across Nessa’s trembling lower lip. She presses a kiss against it, and watches Atika unravel in front of her eyes.

A heartbeat later she closes her eyes again, alongside the distance between them.

Atika’s bones may be corroded with the conflict she was born into, and her body weary from a burden she did not choose. Chaotic violence ripped and continues to rip her people apart, but she is not broken. She is strong and daring and reckless, Nessa feels it in the way she surges forward.

Suddenly her hands are cupping Nessa’s face, running through her hair, down to her neck and the collar of her blouse, pulling her in almost desperately. Finally, Nessa gives in and fully overcomes her initial shock. Now, she does touch Atika’s hair. She buries her hands in it while she adds her teeth to their kiss until she hears the other woman exhale a sigh that could have been taken for a moan. It’s another thing, this time a sound and not a look, that she’s never experienced before. Her tongue follows her teeth, sweeping briefly across Atika’s upper lip.

Then everything speeds up, begins to blur. The Palestinian moves further forward. She reaches around Nessa until her hand finds the backrest of the bench behind Nessa. She pushes herself off. Nessa understands and gives way until Atika straddles her. She kneels over Nessa, hands in the nape of her neck, opening the top bottoms of her blouse. Suddenly her mouth and hot breath are on Nessa’s throat and under her ear, whispering her name against Nessa’s skin.

Nessa digs her fingers into Atika’s back. She steadies her in the position on top of her, and rakes her shoulder blades with her fingernails. Surging upward, towards Atika’s open mouth – God, how she _tastes_ –Nessa manages to push a hand under the Palestinian’s blouse.

Atika exhales sharply. Her breath ghosts over Nessa’s lips, ragged, and in response she feels herself beginning to smile. Promptly, Atika’s tongue darts out, touches the corner of Nessa’s mouth before she presses her lips against the same spot. Their hands find each other and just for a second she rests her forehead against Nessa’s temple while their fingers clasp behind her back. Nessa can feel her shake, ever so slightly, on top of her. At some point Nessa must’ve pulled the tie out of her hair because now it’s falling freely, a dark frame around her face. It’s still slightly wet and shining, but not as bright as her eyes.

Then the moment is over and Atika glides off her and stands up, pulling Atika with her to her feet. Immediately the taller woman’s lips are on hers again. Her motions become more and more greedy and desperate, afraid of wasting even a fraction of any second they have together. Nessa doesn’t know why they are doing this. It doesn’t make sense – it’s against everything she’s believed in in the last few years. She doesn’t know who initiated it, or how it will end. The only thing in her mind is Atika right here, in her arms, and the fact that the Palestinian leads her to Ephra’s and Rachel’s bedroom.

The house is quiet around them, and Nessa too afraid to break the silence and the spell it carries. The rain dampens every noise. It’s physically impossible for Nessa to look away, to avert even a single one of her senses from Atika.

They undress each other slowly, savouring every heartbeat, every expanse of bare skin exposed. They will have time to be fast and greedy later. Atika’s fingers trace Nessa’s clavicle, sternum, the lower end of her ribcage, while Nessa unbuttons her blouse completely. Then Atika’s lips brush over the hollow of her throat. They lay gentle kisses on her pulse point and Nessa can’t stop the sigh from escaping her lips anymore. Her whole body is brimming with the reverberations of Atika’s pulsating energy.

The Palestinian pushes her back down on the bed and unclasps Nessa’s bra, strips off her own jeans.

Where Nessa is refined, almost sculpted, Atika is all jagged hips, scarred stomach, that dip of her sternum rising and falling, and ribs that Nessa can count with her naked eye. Her breath is ragged and her eyes uncompromising and her radiating smile inches from Nessa.

Up until now there was a small part of her, a voice locked away in the very back of her mind that was hopelessly terrified that everything she feels for Atika is only rooted in a longing for something she cannot have – almost like her wish to right her father’s wrongs. Nessa feared that this craving for the other woman is just the product of a twisted, dark mind: the most fundamental flaw of all, the desire for the one thing beyond your reach.

But it’s not. This will not cease to exist as soon as it’s been inflamed and burnt up. It’s so much more, it’s frightening. The Palestinian is incandescent, igniting every fibre of her being, leaving them transformed forever. The more she holds on to Atika, the less she’ll ever be able to let go again. But then, it’s always been like that. If she’d ever been at a point where she’d gladly sacrificed everything she’s built with her life, it’d be this; if only this contact, skin to skin, would never end. It’s all Atika’s anyway. She presses herself down on the Palestinian, feels her fingers travel down the expanse of her spine, counting the vertebrae in her spine just to cause a shiver that runs down Nessa’s whole body.

She wants all of her. Every crevice of her body, breathless, when it feels like every atom of their bodies is simultaneously attempting a fusion reaction just to get that one impossible bit closer, just for one second before the world explodes around them. It’s disintegrating right now in any case. There is interference with their sense of time and space as something fundamental shifts in their universe.

She bites her neck, then, and Nessa knows this will leave marks but she’s way past the point of caring. She’s had Atika’s fingerprints all over her soul for a long time, the imprints of her incisors at the edge of blooming hickeys are nothing in comparison.

There is no rush when they peel each other out of the rest of their clothing. Nessa opens herself up to Atika. She offers herself, and gives so much back in return. It’s blatantly obvious – and it breaks Nessa’s heart a little – that in situations like this Atika is not used to being observed and listened to. Nessa is fast with finding the places whose touch makes Atika arch that bit more, groan a bit deeper, bite her lip and hold her breath. There is the soft spot on the inside of her thigh, for example. And when Nessa tends those places closely, Atika’s eyes flutter open, almost in an expression of confusion before they close again and she leans into Nessa’s touch. She’s not used to kindness in bed. If she wanted her to, Nessa could be as rough as a cat with her - and for what’s worth it she will if Atika keeps doing that _thing_ with her tongue but doesn’t move upwards to where Nessa really needs her – but seeing the Palestinian unravel in the same way, loosing herself completely under Nessa’s skilful fingers, that’s what she really wants to do right now. There is a way they bodies fit together, not just into one another, but really together that’s so much more than their scattered hearts and souls alone. There are screams in her that have never been externalized. Nessa will be damned if she doesn’t get her to release some of them.

The rain is still drumming against the window, the backdrop of everything afterwards that turns into this endless messy blur. Later Nessa will have trouble discerning all memories. Later there are cries, many of them, coming from both women.

There’s Nessa, knuckles deep in Atika, her teeth around Atika’s earlobe, pulling, doing anything to just make her say “Nessa” one more time in that husky way of hers, but there’s Arabic dropping of her lips instead, and as good as Nessa is at that throaty language, she’s not in the right state of mind to translate it. Not when Atika is this sight to behold right now, knuckles white because her fingers are buried in the bed sheets, clinging on for dear life. The strands of her black hair spill all over the bed. The lean muscles of her body flex marvellously under her skin. Nessa would love to look into her eyes right now, but they’re shut tightly, and anyway, if she’d stop the rhythm of her pumping movement right now Atika would buckle up again, wrapping her legs around Nessa to pull her back in.

Nessa has long since given up puzzling about how they ended up here, in this very moment. She’s only loose nerve ends and firing neurons, a force of action and reaction guided by sensations that range from a soft tingling to an all-consuming blaze.

Later, there’s Atika, sweat-drenched, crescent moon marks left by Nessa’s fingernails on her shoulder blades. After she pieced the world back together from the splinters Nessa broke it into, she rolled herself around and now she’s towering over the other woman. But she bends down, clasps her hands with Nessa’s and holds them over her head, presses them into the pillows. Her lips kiss Nessa’s cheek, her chin, her throat, and they travel further downwards.

Nessa is inhaling her smell, exhaling her name, feeling it fill up her chest and head to the point of overflowing. She will never feel this holy ever again. Atika releases her hands from her grip and Nessa has to grab the headboard immediately. The short black strands of her hair form a halo around her head when she throws it back against the sheets, her body arching while Atika reaches her lower stomach, her fingers already between Nessa’s thighs.

Night settles slowly, accompanied by the onset of thrushes singing outside the windows. The two women barely notice the change, they only realize that it’s getting late when the light is too faint to see each other fully, and even then they only decide to drive out the growing shadows by switching on the bedside lights when they can’t read the expression in each other’s eyes anymore. There is no way of telling when exactly they turn them off again. It must be well after midnight when they finally fall into deep, exhausted sleep.

When they wake up the next morning – Nessa nestled against Atika’s chest – it takes both of them a short while to figure out where they are. But as soon as the Palestinian plants the softest of kisses on Nessa’s forehead she remembers. Nessa doesn’t shrink back. Instead, she mirrors the gesture, pressing her lips against the skin where she can feel a strong heart beating underneath, and then again a few inches higher in the hollow below Atika’s throat. Finally, she props herself up on her elbow and does the inevitable.

Her eyes search for the pair of dark brown ones. They’re already open and alert, of course, but there’s a haziness around the edges of her pupils, something Nessa can’t really place.

“Atika,” she whispers softly. If she wanted to say something else, it has escaped her mind. The sunlight filtering through a window hits the Palestinian’s face in a peculiar way, igniting wisps of hair and the tips of her lashes that begin to glow golden. There’s a hint of red – chestnut – in the hair that’s spilling over the pillow under her head.

She doesn’t say anything, though. She simply holds Nessa’s gaze.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Atika answers, the curve of her mouth turning upwards.

It takes Nessa a few minutes more to collect her thoughts. With a low tremble in her voice she murmurs “Perhaps... Perhaps it could always be like this. I want it to be like this. Everyday.”

“No. It can’t. You know it.” The smile vanishes and the answer is flat, almost bare of any emotions, but Atika’s eyes are burning into Nessa’s.

“That’s not fair.”

“Nothing is fair in this world. Don’t you know that?”

“By now I really should, shouldn’t I?” Nessa lets herself fall back into the pillows, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Atika’s next words are gentle, though, and pleading. “Hey, look at me, Nessa, please.”

Nessa turns her head around. They’re lying shoulder to shoulder, brushing softly against each other. Nessa can feel Atika’s body heat radiating. She tries to shut her eyes, pretend this moment will never ever come to an end, but she can’t escape the way Atika argues more with her eyes than her voice.

“There is sun here. There are also shadows. And neither could exist without the other,” Atika says. Nessa could spend hours – has spent hours – listening to the low melody of her voice. Atika still stumbles over the occasional consonant. Her tongue just can’t touch the roof of her mouth or her front teeth in the right way.

Nessa turns her body to the side so she’s fully facing the Palestinian. The sheets rustle under her. “Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that we have a chance after all of this?”

“Yes,” Atika bites, and because she looks away from Nessa while she says it, Nessa realizes that she’s being strong for the two of them again. But her hands start trailing the outline of Nessa’s neck and chin, touch her mouth, and she’s almost fine with what the Palestinian said.

“Atika, you don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“I can try,” Atika says, and then there’s a sudden twitch in her lips and they curve softly and one of her radiating smiles begins spreading over them until it reaches her eyes and for the love of God Nessa can’t look away. Atika’s true smiles are rare as rain in the desert. They are water drops drumming on scorched earth. They wash away the dust and ease all burns. Sometimes they come with thunder rumbling in the distance, when Atika spills a bit more of what she keeps inside herself, but not right now.

It makes Nessa feel flowers growing in her chest for hours afterwards. She allows herself one more moment of utter, unapologetic, reckless joy before she asks “This can’t happen again, can it?”

Again Atika doesn’t look at her when she answers. “Never.”

 


End file.
